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The Future Agenda programme, sponsored by Vodafone Group, provides an open forum for discussion about how to address the major challenges which society faces over the next ten years, offering the opportunity for all to share ideas and potential solutions so that ultimately we can together inspire change.
The programme brought together informed people from around the world to analyse the crucial themes of the next ten years. Fifty workshops in twenty-five locations took place and resulted in a unique view of the next ten years. A website and a book report on the key conclusions.
The Four Macro Certainties
In the opening section, Vodafone details what it sees as the four macro-scale certainties for the next decade – the things that, unless there is an unexpected, massive and fundamental global shift, will most definitely occur and so are the certitudes upon which everything else is built. These certainties are 1) a continued imbalance in population growth, 2) more key resource constraints, 3) an accelerating eastward shift of economic power to Asia, and 4) pervasive global connectivity. Each of these is covered separately so that you can gain a good understanding of why these macro drivers of change are occurring, what the core characteristics of these shifts are and, therefore, how they will influence the world between today and 2020.
The key insights
The second section explores some of the key insights we have gained into how the world and our lives will probably change over the next decade. These are the key changes highlighted by the programme that will occur in many different areas, some influenced by just one of the four certainties, others by two or more. These changes are detailed by providing both the signals from today that give evidence to support the direction of change and the future implications over the next ten years. They are grouped into six clusters – health, wealth, happiness, mobility, security and locality – which seem to encompass all the issues highlighted. . Each change that is depicted in this section is variously linked to a number of others and so Vodafone has used margin indicators to help you see these links clearly and so move from one topic to another.
References
Finally, there is a section giving resources and references which brings together some of the multiple sources of information that have been shared and used in the Future Agenda programme. Vodafone will continue to add to this as the programme develops.